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- The field of Cardiovascular Medicine
is changing rapidly.
A lot of that is due to advancements
and these catheter-based techniques.
Catheters are inserted into blood vessels
and they are long, flexible tubes,
almost like straws that can make their way
up to the heart structures
and allow us to deliver devices to the heart.
Through catheters we can fix arteries in the heart.
We can close abnormal holes in the heart
and really only recently have been able to
repair and replace heart valves using catheters.
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It's remarkable that change and innovation
that has happened.
Valves have two main purposes:
they need to open to allow blood to leave the heart
and they need to close to prevent the blood
from flowing backwards through the heart.
My area of interest is primarily the mitral valve.
The most common problem with the mitral valve
is that it doesn't close properly
and the blood will leak backwards.
The mitral valve has a very large range of pathologies
and so this spectrum of disease really make it a challenge
to tailor therapy for individual patients.
And that's really the benefit of being at a place like Yale
with a lot of options when it comes to
innovative clinical device trials.
This allows us to offer procedures and techniques
to patients that potentially would not have
any other options.
The main device that we use to repair mitral valves
is the mitraclip.
We also have a research trial called Apollo
for one of the few sites in the country
that can offer this valve.
As we've proven that these devices are safe and effective,
we've done trials in patients who are
lower risk for surgery.
And so the patient population
that we can offer these procedures to is evolving.
Yale is one of the highest volumes structural heart programs
in the country
and what that means for patients is that
we are able to push the fundamentals and the innovation
of this procedure and these devices forward.
The procedures that we are doing to replace the valve
will become faster, safer for patients
and more effective
and to treat a broader range of patients.
I think when we look back 10 years,
a lot of us never even envisioned that we'd have the devices
at our fingertips that we have.
And so we are excited as a Structural Heart Team
to see how these devices and procedures
will change and develop
and how it will have a huge impact on patient's lives.